1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the creation of electronic mail to be transmitted across a computer network and Internet environment. More particularly, the invention relates to the intelligent formatting of electronic mail sent to computer network and Internet recipients of plain text and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)-formatted electronic mail.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic mail (e-mail) has evolved over the years, from the sending of simple ASCII text across computer networks to the inclusion of URL links and Java applets amidst formatted text. As a result, many e-mail standards are in use today. Two of the most common forms are plain text and HTML formatting. Plain text e-mail contains minimal text formatting and can represent structures such as bullet lists. There are many e-mail clients that can only receive plain text e-mail from the Internet or other e-mail clients or they cannot interpret HTML formatting.
HTML formatting adds powerful formatting features to a document, e.g. fonts, bold, italic, color, images, paragraph alignment, links, bulleted and numbered lists, and tables. HTML-capable e-mail clients understand both HTML and plain text formatting.
Referring to FIG. 1, a problem arises when an HTML-capable client 101 sends HTML-formatted e-mail to a plain text e-mail client 102. The plain text e-mail client 102 cannot understand the HTML-formatted document. The document will appear garbled, unreadable or will be blank when opened by the plain text e-mail client 102.
One approach to this problem is always to send two copies of the document. One copy has HTML formatting and the other copy has plain text formatting. The problem with this approach is that the memory demands on the recipient are much higher because the recipient must store two copies of the document each time. Additionally, the bandwidth requirements across the computer network are also higher because redundant messages are being sent.
Another approach is always to send plain text e-mail messages to all recipients. The drawback to this approach is that the rich formatting features of HTML are lost when plain text messages are sent to HTML-capable e-mail clients.
If the user wants to send HTML messages to HTML-capable clients, he must switch between the plain text document editor and the HTML editor. Using this approach to send e-mail to both plain text and HTML clients requires the user to create two copies of the same document. The user must enter the plain text editor and create one copy of the document and then enter the HTML editor to create an HTML-formatted copy of the same document. This effort is not only bothersome and time-consuming, but it also requires the user to remember which recipients are HTML-capable each time a message is sent.
It would be advantageous to provide an intelligent e-mail system that is capable of sending HTML-formatted e-mail to clients that are HTML-mapable and plain text e-mail to those clients that are not HTML-capable. It would further be advantageous to provide an intelligent e-mail system that allows the user to create one document and have said document converted from HTML-formatting to plain text automatically, thereby taking advantage of the rich HTML formatting features.
The invention provides a smart Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) electronic mail system. The invention uses an intelligent, automatic, and convenient HTML e-mail system that allows the user to send both HTML-formatted and plain text e-mail from one application.
The user specifies if certain e-mail domains, newsgroups, and individual e-mail addresses are HTML-capable or require plain text e-mail. Another option allows the invention to query directory servers such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers as to the HTML capabilities of an e-mail client.
The user composes an HTML e-mail document, indicating the addressees in the xe2x80x9ctoxe2x80x9d field. When the user selects the xe2x80x9csendxe2x80x9d command, the invention utilizes an intelligent decision algorithm to decide if an addressee is HTML capable or if plain text is required. It examines the document and, if the addressee is known to be HTML-capable, the document is transmitted as is.
If the addressee is not known to be HTML-capable and if the document does not contain any HTML formatting that cannot be easily rendered in plain text, the invention automatically converts the document to plain text and transmits the document, thereby sending the simpler and more commonly supported plain text form of the message without materially altering the display of the message or having to ask the user what to do. If the document does contain any HTML features that cannot be easily rendered in plain text, the invention asks the user if he wants to send the document as is or have it converted over to plain text before sending. The invention automatically and intelligently converts and distributes the user""s e-mail documents to both HTML-capable and plain text e-mail clients.